Today's modern networked computing environments make electronic file and content distribution easy and efficient. The term, “content”, as used herein, may refer to any digital file content that can be accessed by a computer system. Examples of content include, but are not limited to, word processing files, spreadsheet files, image files, presentation files, PDF files, CAD files and digital media files, such as music, sound and video files.
Application programs configured to send, upload and download electronic file content over a network are ubiquitous. With today's high-speed networks, large amounts of content can quickly be distributed over long distances to many recipients. Most content distributed over the Internet, across corporate networks and between homes is not considered sensitive and therefore presents no security risk. However, ease-of-use and efficiency can quickly be impacted when dealing with sensitive content. Sensitive content may be content in which access is restricted to a limited number of users.
In some cases, a policy may be associated with sensitive content. A policy may define a list of users authorized to access the content. The policy may also define permissions or usage rights associated with each user. For example, one user may have permission to only read the content (e.g., word processing document) and another user may have permission to read or change the content. “Rights-protected content”, as used herein, may be sensitive content associated with a policy.
As a further protection from unauthorized access, rights-protected content may be encrypted using complex encryption algorithms. Encryption is the process of transforming information to make it illegible to anyone except those possessing special knowledge, usually referred to as a key. Decryption transforms the encrypted information making it legible again. Whenever two or more people send and receive encrypted sensitive content between each other, credentials may also be managed and exchanged to allow access to the content. User credentials may include digital signatures and/or public/private keys.
The complexity level of content distribution rises when a company or an organization with many employees attempts to integrate the control of rights-protected content within enterprise business processes. Many companies utilize one or more policy servers for administering policies associated with rights-protected content.
Generally speaking, utilizing a content distribution system that protects sensitive content while remaining easy to use can be very complex.